The purpose of candidate scorecards is twofold:
What is on your score card
Some basic criteria you can use to benchmark the candidates on their response to the climate emergency are listed below from strongest to weakest position.
Options include expanding some categories such as detailing policies that relate to the climate emergency i.e. "the candidate council funded role out of energy efficiency home retrofits for the most disadvantaged members of our community". This particularly helps educate the public about what is needed to respond to the climate emergency.
If you decide to list policies, make sure you include a range of policy points so the full scope of actions needed to respond to the climate emergency, including modifying diet, zero emissions ASAP (i.e. 10 years or less, includes transport and agriculture), planting trees to tackle the urban heat island effect and drawdown are covered, not just policies around stationary energy, such as putting solar panels on people's roofs.
Common Mistakes?
Common mistakes when developing ranking systems include not differentiating strong climate emergency / safe candidates from weaker candidates. As climate emergency campaigners our goal should be to get the maximum first preference votes for any genuine climate emergency candidates and encourage votes to give the preferences in order of the a candidate's climate policy.
What if you only have very weak candidates?
You might find you don’t have any true climate emergency candidates so you may not have any candidates that meet the criteria for questions 1-3 or even 4. As such, you might choose only to list questions from 4. and below.
If you don’t have any strong candidates there is an argument for including at least one criteria in which all your candidates fail. This shows both the candidates and the voting public that there is more that can be done.
For example you best candidate only meets criteria 3. You may wish to include criteria 2 to show that there is more that can be done.
However we would prefer all candidates be shown against the key criteria of support for "a full emergency mobilisation of their council".
Going Minimal
Alternatively you might wish to to for a minimalist version.
- To promote the candidates with the strongest public positions on the climate emergency and encourage people to vote for these candidates first.
- To educate the public about the climate emergency and its solutions.
What is on your score card
Some basic criteria you can use to benchmark the candidates on their response to the climate emergency are listed below from strongest to weakest position.
- Candidate is calling for a full emergency mobilisation of their council Y / N
- Candidate has a history of campaigning on the climate emergency Y / N
- Candidate has a comprehensive set of policies that relate to the climate emergency Y / N
- Candidate has some policies that relate to the climate emergency Y / N
- Candidate has signed the climate emergency declaration Y / N
- Candidate has supported climate positive policies in the past Y / N / NA
- Candidate has supported climate negative policies in the past Y / N / NA
- Candidate is sceptical that global warming is human caused Y / N
- Candidate denies that global warming is human caused or dangerous Y / N
Options include expanding some categories such as detailing policies that relate to the climate emergency i.e. "the candidate council funded role out of energy efficiency home retrofits for the most disadvantaged members of our community". This particularly helps educate the public about what is needed to respond to the climate emergency.
If you decide to list policies, make sure you include a range of policy points so the full scope of actions needed to respond to the climate emergency, including modifying diet, zero emissions ASAP (i.e. 10 years or less, includes transport and agriculture), planting trees to tackle the urban heat island effect and drawdown are covered, not just policies around stationary energy, such as putting solar panels on people's roofs.
Common Mistakes?
Common mistakes when developing ranking systems include not differentiating strong climate emergency / safe candidates from weaker candidates. As climate emergency campaigners our goal should be to get the maximum first preference votes for any genuine climate emergency candidates and encourage votes to give the preferences in order of the a candidate's climate policy.
What if you only have very weak candidates?
You might find you don’t have any true climate emergency candidates so you may not have any candidates that meet the criteria for questions 1-3 or even 4. As such, you might choose only to list questions from 4. and below.
If you don’t have any strong candidates there is an argument for including at least one criteria in which all your candidates fail. This shows both the candidates and the voting public that there is more that can be done.
For example you best candidate only meets criteria 3. You may wish to include criteria 2 to show that there is more that can be done.
However we would prefer all candidates be shown against the key criteria of support for "a full emergency mobilisation of their council".
Going Minimal
Alternatively you might wish to to for a minimalist version.
- Candidate supports a full emergency mobilisation of their council Y / N
- Candidate has signed the climate emergency declaration Y / N
- Candidate opposes action on the climate emergency or denies global warming Y / N
- We are in climate emergency and need to act now to reverse global warming before it is too late. We have already entered dangerous tipping points that we just speculated about 30 years ago. Methane is literally exploding out of the northern tundras and soils are becoming a source of carbon dioxide as opposed to a carbon sink. We need radical action now and the timeline is less than a decade, not 20-30 years. Without such action we will tip into irrevocable climate catastrophe.
- Because of state and federal governments failure to act on global warming councils can play a key role in helping lead efforts to reverse global warming and educating the public about the problem.
- What councils can do:
- Enter a full emergency mode and commit all discretionary resources to their efforts to reverse global warming including advocacy.
- Educate the community about the climate emergency
- Encourage solar uptake in their community
- Help low income people and renters to improve the energy efficiency of the buildings where they live
- Support zero emission transport such as walking, cycling, expanded public transport and electric cars powered by renewable electricity.
- Help reduce the consumption of high emissions food such as beef, lamb dairy and rice.
- Reducing local heat island effects by planting trees to create shade
- Other resilience measures and building community resilience and support
- Reducing the impacts of future floods, fires and heat waves and providing appropriate supports when these occur
- Support drawdown of past emissions by converting green waste to biochar, a stable form of carbon that can be used to support agriculture or a home garden.
- Pass a motion to declare that we are in a climate emergency
- Develop a climate emergency plan
- Incorporate and prioritise the climate emergency plan into their Strategic Plan
- Encourage other councils to follow suit
- Educate their staff
- And many other actions.
